Wisdom is a living stream, not an icon to be preserved in a museum. Only when a practitioner finds the spring of wisdom in his or her own life can it flow to future generations. Keeping the torch of wisdom glowing is the work of all of us who know how to clear a path through the forest in order to walk on ahead.

Please draw on your own experience to understand this book. Do not be intimidated by any of the words or ideas. Only as author of the text yourself will you find the joy and the strength necessary to journey from mindfulness to insight.

Today three children, two girls and a little boy, came from the village to play with Thanh Thuy (pronounced "Tahn Tui").

Keep in mind that the river must flow and that we are going to follow it. We must be aware of every little stream that joins it. We must be aware of all the thoughts, feelings, and sensations that arise in us-of their birth, duration, and disappearance. Do you see? Now the resistance begins to disappear. The river of perceptions is still flowing, but no longer in darkness. It is now flowing in the sunlight of awareness. To keep this sun always shining inside of us, illuminating each rivulet, each pebble, each bend in the river, is the practice of meditation.

We know that as soon as there is repression, there is rebellion-repression entails rebellion. True mind and false mind are one. Denying one is denying the other.

The sun of awareness originates in the heart of the self. It enables the self to illuminate the self. It lights not only all thoughts and feelings present. It lights itself as well.

Sunshine is green leaves / Green leaves are sunshine / Sunshine is not different from green leaves / Green leaves are not different from sunshine / The same is true of all forms and colors.

Which is our own self? Which is true? Which false? Which is good? Which bad? Please calm down, my friend. Lay down your sharp sword of conceptual thinking. Don't be in such a hurry to cut your "self" in two. Both are self. Neither is true. Neither is false. They are both true and both false.

Don't rush from the concept of "two" to the concept of "one." This ever-present sun of awareness is at the same time its own object. When a lamp is turned on, the lamp itself is also brought to light. "I know that I know." "I am conscious of being conscious." When you think, "The sun of awareness has gone out in me," at that moment it re-lights itself, faster than the speed of light.

Awareness is like an elder brother or sister, gentle and attentive, who is there to guide and enlighten. It is a tolerant and lucid presence, never violent or discriminating. It is there to recognize and identify thoughts and feelings, not to judge them as good or bad, or place them into opposing camps in order to fight with each other.

Your mindful breath and your smile will bring happiness to you and to those around you. Even if you spend a lot of money on gifts for everyone in your family, nothing you could buy them can give as much true happiness as your gift of awareness, breathing, and smiling, and these precious gifts cost nothing. description:

Examination, in the sense of awareness, does not mean analysis. It only means continuous recognition. Thinking requires strenuous mental work, and makes us tired. This is not the case while resting in awareness or "recognizing."

"Truth cannot be captured by concepts." I wonder who said this first. We too have this perception when we concentrate ourselves in order to observe. The sword of conceptual thinking only cuts truth into small, lifeless pieces all seemingly independent of each other.

When we illuminate something with our awareness, it changes, it blends and merges with the awareness. For example, when you are aware that you are happy, you may say, "I am aware that I am happy." If you go a step further,' you may say, "I am aware of being aware that I am happy." There are three levels: The happiness, the awareness of happiness, and the awareness of being aware. I am offering this sword of conceptual thinking in order to demonstrate a point; but in truth, in you these three levels are one.

Around us, life bursts forth with miracles—a glass of water, a ray of sunshine, a leaf, a caterpillar, a flower, laughter, raindrops. If you live in awareness, it is easy to see miracles everywhere. Each human being is a multiplicity of miracles. Eyes that see thousands of colors, shapes, and forms; ears that hear a bee flying or a thunderclap; a brain that ponders a speck of dust as easily as the entire cosmos; a heart that beats in rhythm with the heartbeat of all beings.

Under the influence of awareness, you become more attentive, understanding, and loving, and your presence not only nourishes you and makes you lovelier, it enhances them as well. Our entire society can be changed by one person's peaceful presence.

In the second century, Nagarjuna wrote The Madhyamika Sastra, in which he used concepts to destroy concepts. He was not trying to create a new doctrine, but to break all the bottles, all the flasks, all the vases, all the containers, to prove that water needs no form to exist. He outlined a dance for us, a dance for us to drop our categories and barriers so that we can directly encounter reality and not content ourselves with its mere reflection. description:

Intellect prepares the soil of the mind and sows the seeds there. Until the seeds sprout, intellect can do no more. To try would only be floundering in a void. Then, at unexpected moments, the seeds send shoots up into the intelligence. These moments usually come because the scientist has "hatched" them. He or she has "sat" on the problem while awake, asleep, eating, walking, until suddenly a solution! The new discovery breaks the old knowledge, and the intellect is forced to destroy today's structures to build tomorrow's.

In any phenomena, whether psychological, physiological, or physical, there is dynamic move- ment, life. We can say that this movement, this life, is the universal manifestation, the most commonly recognized action of knowing. We must not regard "knowing" as something from the outside which comes to breathe life into the universe. It is the life of the universe itself. The dance and the dancer are one.

I mean that the presence of one cell implies the presence of all the others, since they cannot exist independently, separate of the others. A Vietnamese Zen master once said, "If this speck of dust did not exist, the entire universe could not exist."13 Looking at a speck of dust, an awakened person sees the universe.

There is no phenomenon in the universe that does not intimately concern us, from a pebble resting at the bottom of the ocean, to the movement of a galaxy millions of light years away.

Someone may ask, "Although I agree that each phenomenon depends on all other phenomena for its birth and existence, where does the all, the complete body which includes all phenomena, come from?" Would you please give him an answer?

The interdependence of all beings is not a philosophical game removed from spiritual and practical life. In bringing to light the interdependence of all phenomena, the meditator comes to see that the lives of all beings are one, and he or she is overcome with compassion for all. When you feel this love you know that your meditation is bearing fruit. Seeing and loving always go together. Seeing and loving are one. Shallow understanding accompanies shallow compassion. Great understanding goes with great compassion.

We must also feel the pain of the tiger or snake deprived of food, and have compassion for them. All beings have to struggle to survive. The more deeply we penetrate into life, the more we see its miracles and the more we see its heartbreaking and terrifying events. Have you seen the life of a spider? Have you lived through a war? Have you seen torture, prison, and killing? Have you seen a pirate rape a young girl on the high seas?

Meditators can see the one in the many, and the many in the one. Even before they see the chair, they can see its presence in the heart of living reality. The chair is not separate. It exists only in its interdependent relations with everything else in the universe. It is because all other things are. If it is not, then all other things are not either.

This non-conceptualizable reality, or true emptiness, is also called "suchness" (bhutatathata). Suchness, sometimes translated "thusness," means "it is so." It cannot be conceived or described through words and concepts but must be directly experienced.

Have you ever looked into the eyes of your loved one and asked deeply, "Who are you, my love?" For either of you to answer, you cannot be satisfied by the usual responses. "My love, who are you who comes to me and takes my suffering as your suffering, my happiness as your happiness, my life and death as your life and death? Who are you whose 'self' has become my 'self?' My love, why aren't you a dew drop, a butterfly, a bird, a pine tree?" Don't be satisfied with mere poetic images. You must ask and answer these questions with your whole mind and heart, with your whole being.

Practice until you recognize your presence in everyone else on the bus, in the subway, in the concentration camp, working in the fields, in a leaf, in a caterpillar, in a dew drop, in a ray of sunshine. Meditate until you see yourself in a speck of dust and in the most distant galaxy. description:

In any struggle, you need determination and patience. This determination will dissipate if you lack peace. Those who lead a life of social action especially need to practice mindfulness during each moment of daily life.

All is in the word "know." To know is to realize. Realization is mindfulness. All the work of meditation is aimed at awakening us in order to know one and only one thing: birth and death can never touch us in any way whatsoever.